okapi

an African mammal, Okapia johnstoni, closely related to and resembling the giraffe, but smaller and with a much shorter neck.

Origin

Bambuba

1900

1900; < Bambuba (Mvu’ba), a Central Sudanic language of the NE Democratic Republic of the Congo (or < a related Pygmy dial.), according to English Africanist Harry Johnston (1858-1927), author of the first zoological descriptions of the animal